


Fighting Dragons

by whytho



Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, They Want To Fight A Dragon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-24 00:29:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8349136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whytho/pseuds/whytho
Summary: It was a pale morning in Mayview. Thick shafts of light slanted through the fog, and when Johnny inhaled the air was fresh and cool in his lungs. It was the perfect day, he thought- cold but not too cold, bright but not to bright, with the perfect fog hanging low and heavy over the lake. Nothing could ruin the beauty of that morning, Johnny thought, except maybe a giant snake-lizard-dragon flying over them and shooting ghost flames at them.





	

It was a pale morning in Mayview. Thick shafts of light slanted through the fog, and when Johnny inhaled the air was fresh and cool in his lungs. It was the perfect day, he thought- cold but not too cold, bright but not to bright, with the perfect fog hanging low and heavy over the lake. 

Nothing could ruin the beauty of that morning, Johnny thought, except maybe a giant snake-lizard-dragon flying over them and shooting ghost flames at them. 

“AUUGHGHGHG,” Johnny yelled at the sky as the huge dragon swept away, winging beating heavily through the air. 

“Uh, Johnny?” Ollie asked tentatively. “Why are you shouting at the sky again?” 

Johnny looked at his friends- Ollie and RJ concerned, Stephen squinting at Johnny like he was a mystery that needed to be solved. They didn’t understand all his weird spirit stuff, but they were trying to, and that, Johnny thought, meant a whole lot. 

“It’s a spirit thing,” he told them. “A dragon one. It blew dragon fire at us.” 

“Oh,” Ollie said. That was all he said. Johnny didn’t blame him- an enormous dragon that blew fire at innocent pedestrians wasn’t something he liked thinking about, either. 

“Can we fight it?” RJ asked eagerly, and Ollie had a look on his face like he was going to tell them that wasn’t a good idea. 

Ollie, however, was clearly wrong. Fighting the dragon was an excellent idea. 

RJ recognized the light in Johnny’s eyes immediately and grabbed on to his arm like a leech, bouncing up and down excitedly. They didn’t say anything, but Johnny got the message- time to find the dragon and fight the dragon. 

“Guys,” Stephen said, “As much as I wanna fight the dragon, we’ve gotta get the groceries for my mom. Can fighting the dragon wait?” 

 

 

Getting Stephen’s mother her groceries took almost an hour- by the time they had bought them and carried them back to Stephen’s house, it was almost ten, and the fog had thickened so much that Johnny could hardly see ten steps in front of him. It was, he thought, wonderful. 

Ollie looked up at the sky, invisible behind the mist, and sighed. “Well,” he said to Johnny, “Where does your lot keep dragons?” 

He considered this. There was a dragon nesting in the rafters of their school’s gym, he knew, but that was a little one, and the only one in the school. He’d seen another coiled around Mayview’s only hotel as it slept, breathing out smoke every time it snorted, but that one was a dark purple, not shimmering red like the dragon he’d seen. 

“Maybe… the lake?” Johnny told them. Yeah, the lake was their best bet. 

They ambled around Mayview, kicking stones and batting around the idea of causing havoc, and RJ went on a rant about video games, and Stephen explained his latest hobby- this time it was competitive pogo sticking- and Ollie sighed and nodded and made interested noises at all the right times, just like he always did. It was easy. Sometimes, just in words or phrases or tones, Johnny knew what they’ll say or sound like before they even opened their mouth to talk about whatever it is they’d decided to tell the others about, and that was easy too- knowing how Stephen and Ollie and RJ act and think. Sometimes it was easier than knowing who he was, really. 

It didn’t take long to get to the lake. The fog was even heavier there, if that was possible- gathering in thick bunches over top of the water, tendrils hanging down like moss. The dragon was nowhere in sight, so they slowly made their way around the edges of the lake, taking off their shoes and socks in order to feel the sand between their toes. Stephen ran into the water, grinning, and RJ followed him to start a splash war. Ollie sighed and rolled his eyes, but Johnny could practically feel the smile hiding in the folds of his eyes, steady and happy. 

Johnny saw the dragon halfway across the lake, lounging on the rocky part of the beach like a cat sunning itself, and with every breath it let out a little tendril of fog joined the mass of mist hanging over the town. He pointed it out to the rest of the group- Stephen was the first to notice the cloud it was making. They stood and watched the fog curl into the air for a few long seconds, silent, and then RJ was off and running, and Stephen followed, and Johnny went too, whooping, exhilarated. 

Once they were about ten feet away from the dragon’s shimmering stomach, RJ stopped. Stephen nearly ran into them- he had to grab onto their shoulder to stop, skidding across rocks and gravel. 

“Is it… large?,” RJ asked quietly. 

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “And cute. In a weird way.” The dragon _was_ cute- weirdly so, but cute. It made Johnny loathe to fight it, a feeling that he wasn’t experienced in. 

They all stood and stared where the dragon might be for a few more long seconds, and then, wordless, RJ turned around and sprinted back to Ollie, as fast as lightning and even quieter. Stephen watched them run as Johnny looked to Stephen, and then they didn’t say anything else as the both of them jogged to meet Ollie and RJ on the fringes of the lake. 

The fog lingered over Mayview for the rest of the week- by next Monday, it was gone, but the damp feeling it brought stayed in the air for a while after. RJ bundled themself up with coats and scarves and even more hoodies than usual, and Stephen spun yarns about magical weather beasts in English class.

**Author's Note:**

> tfw you write sometihng rlly short but it's about the jang so you don't care


End file.
